Unions' Responses to Teamwork: Differences at National and Workplace Levels

Abstract

This article compares trade unions' responses to teamwork in one Spanish and two British factories of the same multinational company. According to some authors, different national and local systems of industrial relations are currently converging around a global model of `cooperative dependence', with teamwork as one of the elements. However, the research reported in this article reveals significant differences in union responses to teamwork, at both national and local levels. These differences show, in turn, the continued vitality of national and local frameworks of labour regulation, and indeed the unions' capacity to exploit international constraints in order to reinforce their position in the industrial relations system.